Ronald Staten
Pharmacy Technology Graduate from San Joaquin Valley College (SJVC)
I’m an impatient person, so I just Googled ‘trade school’ and went for the first one I saw, SJVC. I wanted something really different. I’d heard Pharmacy Technicians made good money, so I was basically sold on that. My research showed potential income way above minimum wage and that you could also work in prison settings, making even better money. That environment (prison) is not intimidating to me at all. I’ve always been adventuresome, and I feel like I’m pretty comfortable wherever I am. I enrolled in SJVC’s Pharmacy Technology program in Lancaster without visiting the campus. Because of Covid, a lot of the classes were online studies. But the in-person classes definitely helped because there are some things you don’t instantly get, so that was a good balance.
I found out there are a lot of other things a Pharmacy Tech can do. You can work in an outpatient pharmacy, inpatient pharmacy, or you can do it from home, which is basically talking with customers about their prescriptions. And just because you’re not strong in one area doesn’t determine that you’re not going to find your groove in another part.
I started my new job in August (after completing the Pharmacy Technology program in July) as a Pharmacy Clerk and when my license goes through, I will become a Pharmacy Technician. Right now, my main responsibility is doing mail-out of prescriptions. Accuracy is definitely important. I also have deliveries, using mail, UPS and a carrier service. It’s a mixture of ringing up in-person customers and taking phone calls from patients or nurses about patients’ medications. I also make sure we have ice for drugs that have to be kept cold.